Cheapest Banking Options in Europe?

strange as it sounds, the 'wizard home loans clear advantage credit card' is definately teh best way to go- there are no withdrawl fees when you're overseas, and you dont pay any currency conversion fees (like you do with anz and commonwealth and basically every other bank in aus). And also, you can just withdraw 10 or 50 euro or however much you need at a time without having to worry about fees, which is great if you're moving between currencies a lot. I ended up paying about $40 in fees over 4 months in europe, unlike my travel companion who paid hundreds of dollars with a regular bank card.

oh just saw ur question there....you dont have to transfer money to the wizard card- you can just use it to withdraw from atms n buy stuff etc, and then (before you go) organise to have your bills direct debited from ur commonwealth bank account at the end of each month. You get a month to pay each bill

Emma, where did you get the idea that there is no conversion fees with the Wizard card? I have yet to see any evidence to support that statement. As I said it #8, Wizard simply seems to be the best of a bad bunch.

You also state there is no need to transfer money onto the card. Where did you get that idea? There is no credit card in the world that does not charge immediate interest on cash withdrawals, unless you have a credit balance at the time of withdrawal. So yes you do have to pre-load it and continue to transfer money onto it if needed.

And please don't quote me their, "No fees for cash advances. No fees for overseas purchases." No fee does not mean no interest charged from day one. No fee does not mean exchange at the Interbank rate.

what about National Australia Banks Gold account. You only pay $12 per month for unlimited transactions plus the conversion rate. I guess it sounds similar to what Wizard offers...what do you all think?

#14 It looks good, but bear in mind it has a $90 annual fee, much higher than most other cards, an18.6% interest rate, and only a 44 day interest free period where most cards have 55 days.

wayworn: yes im aware you get charged interest when you withdraw from an atm overseas, but as long as you pay each bill before it becomes overdue, the fees dont really rack up to much (like 1% or somethin, which is nothing compared with other cards). probably should have made this a bit clearer at the beginning. I got the idea about not needing to transfer money onto the card from the fact that i didnt ever have to transfer money to the card while in europe (that being the point of having credit!). i just withdrew and put purchases on it and then each bill was direct debited from my anz account each month.